Our training compete, on June 20, 1964, four of us took off from
Western College for Women in Oxford, Ohio for Moss Point,
Mississippi in my car, a 1300-kilometer trip. With me were:
Howard Kirschenbaum, a white college student from an upper
middle-class Jewish family; Fred Meely, a working-class black
volunteer; and SNCC project director Charles Glenn. Charles came
from the working class and into the movement through Lawrence
Guyot, our district leader, and Bob Moses. Glenn, at 23, was a
year younger than me. The other two volunteers were about 20
years old.

Oxford is on the southwest border with Indiana and 50 kilometers
from Kentucky. It took us no more than half an hour before we
entered the south. Charles wanted to stop at the border, in order
to fill the gas tank and stock up on liquids and sandwich
makings. I had a 5-gallon can that we filled as well, calculating
that we'd have just enough gasoline to make our destination.
Segregation of facilities began in southern Kentucky. If we
stopped at a filling station, we would be suspect since we were a
"mixed car". That could lead to trouble before we even began our
work. It was no longer possible to eat or drink together, nor use
the same toilets. There was often no "negro toilet" where there
was a white one, nor were there any cafes for blacks. From now on
we didn't stop. We drove through the night taking turns at the
wheel. As we passed through the deep south, from infamous
Birmingham into Mississippi, the two whites or the two blacks lay
on the back seat so that KKKers and police could not see that we
were mixed.

Noontime the next day, we arrived in the black neighborhood of
the port town Pascagoula, population 17,000. As we entered a
"negro cafe", we were instantly greeted by the handful of
customers and the waiter. We were expected. The Freedom Summer
project had been widely publicized. Charles had also been here
before the summer.

An active NAACP member introduced us around and the people burst forth
with questions, information and tips. They warned us about the "Tom"
police — one had killed a black man a few months before.
"He had done no wrong but he was a threat to the power
structure," we were told. Watch out for informers. Always be
conscious of potential danger. They let us know that despite the gulf's
"liberal" reputation the power structure of Jackson
county — population 55,000 with 20%
blacks — was against the voter registration project.
Although there were more blacks registered to vote than the state
average, the atmosphere towards equality was one of "general
discouragement", also among many black people. Few tried to register,
not only out of fear of reprisals but due to a sense of "it makes no
difference."

Moss Point lay eight kilometers inland, a typical small town of
7000. When we arrived in late afternoon, we again entered a Negro
cafe to find our bearings. People were curious about two blacks
and two whites together in their town. Everyone knew of the
project. They even knew that three of our colleagues had been
arrested in the little central town of Philadelphia. Upon hearing
this, we called our district office in Hattiesburg. A staffer told us
that Michael Schwerner, a white CORE field secretary, and James Chaney,
a black CORE staffer, had been instructors at Oxford. They left just
hours before us to drive to their project area in Neshoba county, where
Philadelphia is, to investigate a church burning and the beating of some
blacks. Andrew Goodman, a white volunteer from New York, had been
assigned to that area and drove with them. I remembered his name and
face. A shy, serious youth, he had sat close to me in plenary sessions.
Their arrest was the first of the summer "invasion".

The people in the cafe were worried. They told us that a week
before there had been a memorial for Medgar Evers, who had been
murdered the year before. Leaflets announcing the memorial had
been hung up on the windows and walls of small black businesses,
mostly cafes like this one. The county sheriff, Cecil Byrd, had
come around, tearing down the notices and ordering all the owners
who had allowed the posting to see him. He told them that he
could take away their licenses if they participated in any way
with Civil Rights. We were told of people losing their jobs and
being run out of town for speaking out, of burnings, beatings and
jailings for nothing, or, rather, because the victims had said or
did something for Freedom.

Before our arrival, SNCC staffers had canvassed the entire state
to find support, especially families willing to house the
volunteers and staffers. That required involving a lot of people,
maybe 10,000 or more and a hundred or more churches. We already
felt loved and accepted before we arrived. We couldn't buy any
beer in these two cafes we'd stopped in. The drinks were on the
house or the customers paid.

Next day, we held our first staff meeting and decided that in the
conflict between rapport and security, security had to win over.
We would not drink so much again, and we appointed me to be the
project's "security chief". Our project consisted of us four, and
we expected another five or six volunteers soon. We needed to
find "our family" and begin to find an office. Our contact was at
a national NAACP meeting. We met him that evening, as well as a
new volunteer just in with the bus. We took Mermie McKay to her
family and we four drove to our family.

"Otis" and "Sarah" Colley had 11 children stuffed into their
wooden-tar-papered house, which consisted of a small kitchen with
an adjoining dining room, a small living room, a bathroom with
shower, and two small bedrooms. One bedroom was given to us. The
entire family of 13 people would sleep in the other bedroom and
the living room for two whole months.

The next day, we five project workers and one young woman from
the community drove 150 kilometers to Hattiesburg for supplies
and petty cash. The Movement office was filled with people
working or discussing work. We were made to feel welcome and the
staff gave us some cash and office materials. Then we were
worriedly told the latest about the three civil rights workers
arrested in Philadelphia two days ago. Sheriff Lawrence Ramsey
and his deputy Cecil Price had released them shortly after
arresting them for, "you know what".

"They were released at night but we haven't heard from them," a
staffer said. "They should have called in immediately. Their car has
been found burned. The media and FBI have come to the area. It doesn't
bode well."

We were back in Moss Point in time for the evening NAACP meeting. The
membership was eagerly interested in hearing what we had to say. People
wanted to know what they could do for the project, and what they and we
could do when reprisals would come. Our answer was to stand together, to
take the matter public, to demonstrate, to be as visible and as united
as possible.

The leadership was evasive. From Medgar Evers' brother, Chuck, we got
the impression that NAACP leadership was more concerned about
"organizational status" than in meeting the needs and desires of the
membership. Someone spoke about the need to do something about the
latest "incident". Earlier that day, two 16 year-old boys had been
picked out of a crowd at the softball field for having "insulted" a
white woman. Police drove them to jail where they refused to let anyone
see them or bail them out. We recalled what had happened to Emett Till
in Money, Mississippi for the same allegation. We said we'd call our
lawyers about this. Then we announced a mass meeting for voter
registration and the Freedom School at the main park, KP, in a week.
Everyone said they'd come and spread the word, and they would search for
a project office. Ordinary black people were already beginning to view
SNCC as themselves.

Howard and I went to Gatlin's cafe to call Hattiesburg about the boys
being arrested. We were immediately approached by people excitedly
claiming that whites were throwing poisoned candy and gum around the
community. Two small children supposedly had been poisoned. I made the
call and explained the situation was getting tense already. We needed a
couple of lawyers to come. We would be called back in an hour. Howie
went to talk to Charlie and I walked next door to "our house" and sat on
the lawn. There was no telephone so someone would come for me when
Hattiesburg returned the call at the cafe.

Then the constables came. They parked in front and I saw that Howie was
in the patrol car. One of the cops came up to the lawn.

"Watcha doing here, boy?" constable Alford chawed.

We exchanged a few not-well-chosen words and I was placed under arrest
for "investigation". The two constables drove to Pascagoula county jail
at 85 miles an hour, with lights and siren turned off. They stopped in
some woods and talked with some civilians armed with guns. We were
scared. The laughing cops left their compatriots and drove us to the
jail. Howie and I were, in fact, glad to arrive at the jail. We were met
by a waiting crowd of officialdom: Pasacagoula policemen and sheriff
deputies, Highway Patrolmen.

These tobacco-chewing stereotypes told us: "We treat our niggers
well, as long as they stay in their place...We don't want you commie
outside agitators coming to our fine magnolia
state — people get killed for less..."

The throng of law enforcement officers then escorted us to an
elevator. We were made to face the wall to the slapping sound of billy
clubs smacking hands. "You boys are in for a good whoopin."

We were pushed into the "nigger bull pen." The cops yelled at the three
black prisoners: "Here they are. Get'em boys." And they smacked
their clubs in their hands and struck the steel bars with the clubs.
Putting whites in a cell with blacks was an unusual act on the part of
the police. They hoped to humiliate us all by intimidating the blacks to
beat us whites. But the forlorn men were ashamed, too confused to move.
After long minutes of silent agony, broken by yelling cops smacking
their wooden batons on steel bars, the police grabbed us and threw us
into the white cell.

"It's whoopin' time," the cops shouted, repeating the routine.
About a dozen whites gathered around us. The lead man was dark-skinned
and black-haired. I surmised that he might be Spanish-speaking and began
to speak to him in rapid Spanish. His brown eyes lit up as his face
contorted in confusion. The moment to strike us collapsed as the
apparent ring-leader recognized his mother tongue. I told him that he
had no interest in treating us as the enemy. We were on the same side.
He did not reply in kind but turned on the whites behind him. One pale
Mississippian announced that he "hated all niggers and nigger lovers",
that we "outside agitators" deserved to be beaten. But the
Mexican-American led the whites off to the other end of the large cell
block where they held a long heated discussion about what to do. Howie
and I sat down in a corner. I was scared too, but I was older and had
been jailed before. I told Howie that our new neighbors would tell our
mates and they would get lawyers here soon. We just needed to hold on.

The police and two trustees clanged billy clubs on the bars and
yelled at the white prisoners to "do justice". The prisoners were
divided. We heard the Mexican-American defend us, and some of the
whites said they didn't feel like doing the "Man's dirty work".
By Howie's watch, the debate raged on for three hours. It was
around three in the morning when all fell silent.

Around ten o'clock, policemen took us out of the cell into the
fingerprinting room. We were booked on "vagrancy". We saw Sheriff Byrd
and Moss Point constable Alford. As we were being fingerprinted and
"mugged", they laughed in our faces and told us sordid stories about our
mates. They said some had been beaten. But worst of all was the story
that Charles had been found in the river cut in half. This was revenge
for his having raped Mermie. She was supposedly on her death bed. One of
them said that Charlie met the same fate as the "three in Philadelphia".
As we were being psychologically prepped, a billy club struck my lower
back. The combination of psychological terror and physical violence
induced me to feint. When I awoke, Sheriff Byrd asked, "What
happened?" I explained what constable Alford had told us about
Charles and Mermie.

"The only stories I have heard," replied Sheriff Byrd drawingly,
"is what prisoners say." Constable Alford backed him up. We later
learned they had lied to us. Our colleagues were safe

We were taken to the lobby where two attorneys from Jackson were
waiting for us. SNCC's national communications director, Julian
Bond, had alerted the FBI, as their files on me reported. (Bond
later became a state legislator in Georgia.) The police let us
go, but denied having taken our personal papers, which we never
recovered.

In the next 24-hour period, there were articles about this arrest in the
local and national media. There was a good deal of interest in this
minor arrest because of the national attention aroused by the
disappearance of Mickey, James and Andy. Various FBI dossiers on my
political activities cite our arrest and various media reports about it.
The June 25 and September 14, 1964 FBI reports start with the June 24
Los Angeles Herald-Examiner article about two students arrested
on vagrancy charges. In these, and many other dossiers, this arrest
reference is immediately followed with the Costa Rican disinformation:

Records of the State Department reveal that Ridenour was arrested
on November 29, 1962 by Costa Rican authorities and charged with being
an agent of international communism, responsible in part for riots which
occurred in Costa Rica on November 24, 1962 and which resulted in
several deaths and numerous injuries.

Some "security index" files contain references to my Mississippi arrest,
taken from the Los Angeles Times, Santa Monica Evening
Outlook, "People's World and the "New York Times, and
always followed by the Costa Rica "subversion" disinformation. In a
December 12, 1969 file, there is reference to an "observer", who
complained that the "New York Times" did not mention my arrest in
Costa Rica. This "observer" may be the same person, Alan Stang, who
wrote, "It's Very Simple: the true story of civil rights," in 1965. The
only point of the book is to claim that the civil rights struggle "is a
symphony in the hands" of the Communist composer. Stang cites Hoover:

The old Communist principle still holds: 'Communism must be built
with non-Communist hands.' We do know that Communist influence does
exist in the Negro movement and it is this influence which is vitally
important.

This small item is revealing in that the FBI people keeping tabs
on me, and obviously many others, made the connection that the right-
wing, racist organizations wanted to make — the same one
FBI boss Hoover wanted to make — civil rights=communism.
Therefore, what Hollywood portrayed to the world in its 1988 film,
"Mississippi Burning", is a deplorable untruth and a prop to
Hoover authoritarianism. Through the performance of the charming actor,
Gene Hackman, we are led to believe that it was the FBI who were the
heroes of the civil rights movement. This is an untruthful rewrite of
history. Many students I have lectured to about US politics and history,
in connection with September 11, 2001, have fallen for this false
propaganda. "Oh, the FBI are good guys — in contrast
to the CIA. The FBI helped blacks get the vote."

The civil rights' lawyers drove Howie and me to Jackson where we met
with COFO staff to discuss our situation. Howard's father had chartered
an airplane to fly him home to New York that evening. Howie was scared
but downtrodden at being taken off the project and vowed to return.

The legal staff was a big help. They were able to get the two
"insulting" teenagers out of jail without charges, and they investigated
the poisoning incident, which could not be confirmed. They also tried to
interest the FBI in this harassment, but they were not motivated.

I was also scared. I stayed over in Jackson another day and then
returned to Moss Point, determined to do all I could to get our project
off the ground. The fact that I and Howie had been "christened" and that
I returned — with the promise of Howie's
return — stood the entire project in good stead. The
black Mason club allowed us to use a room in their building for an
office. We soon had local kids coming in to learn how to fill out the
Freedom Registration forms, which we used to help people fill out the
official forms, and many signed up for Freedom School courses.